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Flukeman
.]] The Flukeman was a genetic freak that found its way into the New Jersey sewer system and killed several people, before being washed up in Martha's Vineyard. (TXF: "The Host", "Pusher") Biological Classification & Processes The Flukeman – a form of quasi-vertebrate human – was an example of reproductive and physiological cross-traiting due to radiation, abnormal cell fusion and/or the suppression of natural genetic processes; essentially, the creature was a result of human science rather than nature. Its vestigial features seemed parasitic but it also had primate physiology. The Flukeman transmitted its larvae, a form of flatworm, through its bite. The being searched for hosts, in order to multiply, and would attack because its victims' bodies provided generative nourishment. Typically, a survivor of a bite by the Flukeman would not only be infected with a flatworm but would also have a peculiar, unfavorable taste in their mouth that would be difficult to remove, although the victim would also have no trouble with swallowing. The wound pattern from the Flukeman's bite looks similar to scolex attachment but is much larger. Like other fluke or flatworms, the Flukeman had no sex organs and was genderless but was, even though technically human, capable of spontaneous regeneration. The Flukeman's typical environment was underwater, although it could also survive on land, in Earth's normal atmospheric levels. The being was also strong enough to haul its victims underwater with it. (TXF: "The Host") History The Flukeman originated on a decommissioned Russian freighter that was used in the disposal of salvage material from the meltdown at Chernobyl. The creature was thus born in a primordial soup of radioactive sewage. In the Atlantic Ocean, two miles off the coast of New Jersey, the Flukeman caused a blockage in the freighter's boiler system. The being then attacked a young engineer named Dmitri who had been sent to clear the blockage, dragging him down into murky water inside one of the freighter's sewage tanks despite the efforts of his crewmates to keep him grounded. When the crew members flushed the tanks, the Flukeman was washed out to sea, along with Dmitri's body. This incident was later reported in the National Comet, in which the creature was referred to - in an article titled "Monster On Board?!" - as a "modern day sea monster, a bloodthirsty creature from beneath the waves." It was following this incident that the being first entered the New Jersey sewage system. One morning, immediately after a workman removed a large piece of wood from the mesh over a sewer outflow and put it on a walkway above the sewage water, the Flukeman pulled the man backwards, while remaining underwater itself, and dragged him towards the mesh, biting into his back soon thereafter. The workman escaped, however, with help from a fellow workman, who threw him a rope and hauled him out of the water. He was left to assume that a snake had bitten him but he later died in the privacy of his home. The Flukeman then entered the Newark County Sewage Processing Plant, where it was seen by a worker named Charlie as it swam through one of the facility's many filtration pools. Due to the alarmed Charlie subsequently backflushing the facility's sewage system, the Flukeman was caught in a large transparent pipe. The being was viewed, therein, by not only Charlie but also the plant's foreman and FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder (who had been investigating the Flukeman's past two attacks, after Dmitri's deceased body had been discovered in a sewer). The Flukeman was then taken to the Middlesex County Psychiatric Hospital, where it was confined to a room and hid behind some pipes in a far corner when Mulder and his former FBI partner, Dana Scully, visited the facility. Even though Scully (who, with Mulder, looked into the room through a window while standing in a corridor outside) did not immediately see the being, Mulder pointed it out to her and she was amazed by the Flukeman's appearance. Mulder described the creature as, seemingly, a "giant blood-sucking worm", having used this description once before - when he had commented to Scully that he hoped he would not have to report that such a being was the culprit behind the recent attacks. Soon thereafter, Mulder's FBI superior, Assistant Director Walter Skinner had a conversation with the Federal Prosecutor's Office about how to prosecute the suspect and learned that the Justice Department had asked for the suspect to be transfered to an institution for a full psychiatric evaluation. Despite Mulder warning that the being should not be transferred as it was not a man but "a monster", Skinner was at a loss for what else to do – believing that the Flukeman should not be put in a zoo due to having killed two people – and reluctantly admitted to the bizarreness of the killer, ultimately agreeing with Mulder that the case should have been an X-file even though that unit had recently been closed. .]] Flukeman was somehow spawned from radioactive waste taken from the Chernobyl accident. Flukeman appears to be a humanoid tapeworm (though the term "fluke" properly refers to a flatworm), and inhabits sewers and sewage tanks. The creature bites people with its suckers and injects a tapeworm (possibly an immature version of itself) into the host, which would eventually exit orally, causing the death of the person. Mulder and a group of waste disposal workers managed to capture Flukeman, but it escaped soon after. He then followed the creature to a sewer, and at the climax of the episode, Mulder apparently kills Flukeman, chopping it in half with a sewer gate as it tried to escape. At the end of the episode, however, we see the remnants of the creature floating in the sewers, still alive. Flukeman was extremely popular with the fanbase. Although the creature only appeared in "The Host", he/it was given a reference or two in a couple of later episodes (He appears on some tabloids in "Pusher", and in "The Field Where I Died," Scully, when asked if she could make anything different, states that, "Even if I knew for certain I wouldn't change a day ... well, except for that Flukeman thing. I could have done without that just fine."). Flukeman has also appeared on a fantasy PEZ dispenser, a small statue, and a limited edition figurine. The Flukeman traveled aboard a Russian cargo ship from Ukraine before reaching the United States. Upon learning this during the murder investigation, Mulder and Scully theorized that the creature was the result of intense radiation poisoning experienced by an otherwise-normal sized flatworm. While trying to escape captivity, the Flukeman was severed in half by a closing gate. (TXF: "The Host") In early 1996, an issue of ''World Weekly Informer was published with a headline on the front page reading, "He's Back!" The article's subheading read, "Flukeman washed up in Martha's Vineyard" and an artist's drawing of the Flukeman was presented above the article.(TXF: "Pusher") Later that year, Scully told Mulder that, except for the Flukeman case, she wouldn't change a day of the past four years in which they had been working together. (TXF: "The Field Where I Died") Appendices Background Information The Flukeman was played by Darin Morgan – the brother of Glen Morgan and a subsequent writer on The X-Files television series. The concept of the Flukeman, as characterized in "The Host", was thought up by Chris Carter after he had been closely studying his dog's worms and had been reading a story about Chernobyl and the extinction of species. The Flukeman costume was a stifling ordeal for Darin Morgan and originally took six hours to put on, before technicians were able to speed up the process. At one point, Morgan had to wear the suit for twenty hours consecutively and, because the costume was so difficult to take off, he simply had no other option but to relieve himself inside the suit. Carter subsequently joked that the assignment was a rite of passage for any aspiring writer for The X-Files. Darin Morgan later sat next to Mulder actor David Duchovny while they were both flying to Vancouver to work on the episode "Humbug", Morgan's first solo writing effort for the series. Duchovny was not yet aware who Morgan was, though, until after he signed a book for Morgan with the words "To My Arch Nemesis" (as Darin Morgan had requested); Morgan then began to reveal his involvement with The X-Files by declaring that he was the Flukeman. Appearances *TXF: **"The Host" **"Pusher" (drawing) Additional Reference *TXF: "The Field Where I Died" External Link Category:Beings and creatures